I'm just going to throw this out there. You may have heard about a company called Planetary Resources which intends to start mining near-earth asteroids in the very near future. They have started a Kickstarter to launch a space telescope... a reasonable challenge given their ultimate ambition. You can read more about this via Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog and at Planetary Resouces' Kickstarter

Now, what does this have to do with AMVs you ask? Well take a look at that Kickstarter again. The $2500 pledge level's boon is to send a 144-frame video into space, where they will play it and re-record it against the (time lapsed) backdrop of the Earth.

So I ask you... could you make a 6 second long AMV?

I am volunteering to run a 144-frame (you tell me the FPS it should run at... doesn't have to be 6 seconds long) AMV contest if the Anime Music Video community can pitch in $2500 before the Your Video In Space award level runs out. To start us on our way I will pledge $99, which equivalent to the level that awards the HD Selfie and Planetary Society Membership (which I will keep for myself). The limited edition mission poster will go to the person whose video is chosen to go into space.

Some mechanics:1) The telescope won't even launch until 2015, so you have plenty of time to make your video.2) The Kickstarter runs out in 32 days, so you don't have long to pony up your money.3) If we achieve funding for the award, submissions will be due by the Anime Weekend Atlanta Professional Awards deadline the September prior to the announced launch date (presently assuming AWA 2014, baring any launch delays), and will be judged as a special category of The Professional Awards by the participants, and yes, entering your 6 second video would enter you in The Professional Awards and would not count against any other submission limit.4) Pledges can be made publicly here, or by PM or email to me. Once it is clear there is interest and sufficient support, I will contact everyone for payment and will purchase the Kickstarter level in the name of The Video Art Track.

To be counted in, we need to raise the $2500 for the Kickstarter level we're after. Without that, there's really no point to the contest.

I've been knocking ideas around with a few people as to what could be done in 144 frames. At 15 frames a second, that's almost 14.4 seconds, not 6... so there's a good bit of latitude between them. Running at 1 FPS and with creative post-processing we could even go over 2 minutes. So this isn't just an opportunity to get someone's studio bumper into space, this really is an opportunity to push the limits of our craft.

There are mock pictures on the Kickstarter that show a sample of how big the screen is in relation to the Earth... it's small, and at a very oblique angle, but the view is clear and beautiful, and has lots of opportunity for your video to "react" to the "world" around it.

So, if you want to do this, contact me either in-thread or via PM with a pledge. We have 30 days and 200 "video" reward levels to go.

I can't find a link, but several years ago (the file below is dated 2005) there was a "7-Second Challenge" to, obviously, make a 7-second AMV. Here's my entry which, oddly enough, was one of the only serious ones.